Bear and Mouse

 Mother Goose Time offers a complete comprehensive monthly preschool curriculum.  It encompasses social and emotional development, physical development, language and literacy, mathematics and reasoning, social studies, science and creative development. 

Every monthly box contains a book of the month. This months story is Timber, which we read on day 3.  Another way literacy is incorporated every month is with a rhyme time poster.  The girls read Hickory Dickory Dock and then played a game to work on number recognition.

The girls took turns rolling the number cube and running to the mouse with the corresponding number on it, which also is great for gross motor movement.  Elli is just starting to recognize numbers so this was a good game to make math fun.  We did more math work by playing with the included bear manipulatives in a tub of water and scooping them out.  Elli had to decide if she had 4 bears in her spoon or not, and then she used the counting cards to verify.

Elli helped me make play dough, which is great for learning about measurements and how to follow a recipe.  She made logs out of play dough and pretended to chop them down; she also made caves for the bear manipulatives.  Using play dough is a good way for increasing fine motor skills.

Elli was given materials for an invitation to create.  I thought she would use the bowl to make a bear den, but instead she turned it into a bear with lots of hair.  We talked about hibernation, which teaches about basic earth science.  Photos of bears were also included for the craft, but she didn't want to use them.  I love the ideas she comes up with when left to her own devices.  The girls also used a mixture of shaving cream mixed with glue to make footprint pictures.  For the tinker and scrap station Elli was given materials to make a teddy bear.  She thought it would be better to cut up a piece of paper and then glue it back into the shape of a bear.  She actually makes different animals out of paper shapes all the time, so this was nothing new for her.  She loves cutting and gluing.